www.davidkatzenstein.com

Main menu

Tag Archives: Travel

Post navigation

In the 1980s I began experimenting with an old Kodak Brownie camera that I picked up at a flea market. I was drawn to the cameras limitations – fixed focus and only one aperture setting – as a way to expand composition; foreground versus background, in focus versus out of focus, while at the same time concentrating on the boldness of color in the real world that surrounded me. I began experimenting in New York City but soon traveled to far off exotic locals to expand my palette.

With Venezuela being the 50th country posted I am happy to announce that I have reached the end of my 50/50 project, sharing 50 images from 50 countries (with 50 stories). I will soon make the entire collection available in its entirety.

While on assignment in Venezuela in 2005 I traveled all night by van from Caracas due west to visit the country’s second city, Maracaibo. We arrived after sunrise exhausted and dripping from the humidity and heat, and immediately proceeded to explore this sprawling metropolis that was a respite from the gridlock and constant safety issues of Caracas. President Hugo Chavez was in office, and there were already signs of a county on the verge of collapse. This image selected here of a group of teenagers cruising in a late model US automobile, passing by political posters bathed in late afternoon sunlight tells part of the story of this rattled country.

Vanuatu is a remote Pacific island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean, about a five-hour flight northeast of Sidney, Australia. A number of years ago I was sent there on assignment by Travel + Leisure Magazine, to document a journey through the archipelago on a beautiful 60’ two masted ketch. Our travels between islands brought us one day to a settlement on Ambrym Island where we were greeted by the village elders. After a brief introduction, they donned their ritual garb and proceeded to begin ceremonial dances in the area in front of their monumental and beautiful Slit Gongs. Years later I came across a similar Slit Gong from the same village at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was immediately transported back to this moment in time.

While walking around the different neighborhoods of Kiev I came across this scene which was reminiscent of classic photography from decades’ past. The two shadows appeared on cue to turn a visual exercise about forms and shapes into a moment captured in time.